An old article from SAP on my journey in Theatre

http://sapcareersamericas.blogspot.com/2012/ - 30/11/2012

The Blending of Passion and Profession

For Sriharsha GN, the stage and software development share a lot. Through theater, the SAP employee from SAP Labs India is helping colleagues discover hidden talent.

Acting is much more than a hobby for Sriharsha Grama Narasimha Prasad – it’s spiritual. “I forget myself and become the role,” he reflects. “This helps me explore myself, what am I, what can I be, and what is inside me.” Talking to Sriharsha, you can tell he is on a personal journey, that nothing can stop him reaching his goal. When he’s not working in SAP Labs India (SLI) as senior software engineer in Quality Governance and Production, Sriharsha runs a weekend theater group in Bangalore called WeMove, or is helping colleagues in the SLI theater group.

Sriharsha’s passion for drama started at a very young age, when he participated by chance in an acting competition and won first prize. “From then on, I was very keen about performing onstage,” he reflects. In 2001, Sriharsha won “Best Supporting Actor” from India’s National School of Drama. Even after finishing his engineering degree and beginning his career as a software engineer, his passion for theater remained. That’s when he joined WeMove, “the place where people like me meet on Saturdays and Sundays out of passion and talent,” as Sriharsha puts it.

The 28 year old has since won many accolades for his acting talent, taking part in the planning, direction, coordination, and even the writing of poems and scripts for WeMove. Today, he is in charge of all creative elements for the theatre.

But the story doesn’t end there. Since joining SAP in 2008, the boundary between Sriharsha’s profession and acting has blurred. He maintains a very real connection between his role as software engineer during the week and performer/director/coordinator on weekends. And this is the way he likes it.
Sriharsha attributes his passion in each discipline to his ability to balance both activities in his life. “I heartily thank SAP for giving me so much space that I am able to manage both my work and my passion outside work so effectively that I am a key player at both places,” he explains. The activities have created a reciprocal effect on each other: “Pursuing my passion on weekends has only made my work at SAP more exciting and created a passion for SAP in me for the work culture. This has enabled me to learn and implement so many things in both places.”

Drama as a Way to “Learn by Unconventional Means” In June, as part of SAP’s 40 year celebration, SAP Labs India (SLI) produced an adaptation of Moliere‘s comedy. The more than 20 cast and crew members of the play were all employees of SAP Labs India, many of them had never set foot onstage. The production combined the disciplines of acting, directing, design, art and technology, and fostered the development of employees in the areas of teamwork, coordination, and self expression.   According to V R Ferose, managing director of SLI, the theater production for 40 years SAP was part of a larger initiative with focus on learning via unconventional means. Drama is just one activity that the leadership team in Bangalore is supporting to expose employees to unconventional sources of learning. Another activity is visiting and learning at schools for the blind. Ferose is sure that this trend is not only relevant to India. The recent international bestselling book “Jugaad Innovation,” documenting frugal and flexible innovation practices, mentioned SAP Labs India for its unique practices in this area, saying it is a testimony to the creativity of its employees.

Show production as a process
For example, coordinating productions for his theater group has inspired Sriharsha to apply LEAN methods at work. “Coordinating with so many people and artists, and creating and defining processes under deadline pressure in my theater group has enabled me to take up the challenge of introducing LEAN culture in my team at SAP,” says Sriharsha. “I am now a Continuous Improvement Round Table member for my team and I have thus contributed my part in this journey of SAP towards LEAN.”

In turn, Sriharsha’s work experience has flowed back into his theater projects: “SAP has taught me the true spirit of balancing processes and creativity while making a product. I also have a vision to use what I have learned at SAP to create entertaining products through my theater group.” Sriharsha has even instituted SAP’s collaboration and decision-making tool, SAP StreamWork, in his theater group. “There were times when we had to plan for several theater performances in parallel – including the complexity of work streams for each production. Since I knew about SAP’s social collaboration tool, we were able to use the solution to take decisions quickly while working remotely.” Sriharsha took advantage of SAP’s offer to non-profit organizations to use the tool for free. “It was a golden opportunity, and people liked it,” he explains.

Theater instills confidence
Theater has had another positive effect on Sriharsha’s work life. It’s improved his confidence in himself and the connection to colleagues. “The praise and feedback from my colleagues when they watch my performances increases my closeness with them at office. This has made me very creative and confident in my daily work, as well as when taking up challenges on the job,” Sriharsha reports.
Sriharsha has seen the same transformation happen to colleagues in theSLItheater interest group. He is one of the founding members of “Rangabhoomi – AnSAPTheatre Interest group”. Here Sriharsha plays a leading role in engaging employees in theater and the creative process. “Software engineers should experience the power of theater acting, and it will really help change perspective,” believes Sriharsha. “I’ve seen a huge change in the people that have participated. Their confidence levels were higher and their thought process was totally different,” he assesses.
SAP Labs managing director VR Ferose recognizes the value of theater to support personal development. So much so that SLI employees were given the opportunity to put on their own theater production as part of SAP’s 40^th anniversary celebrations (see Box “Drama as a Way to “Learn by Unconventional Means”).

Life on the stage has helped Sriharsha connect better with people, develop empathy for others, and approach life in a better way. “I think it is very important to dream and achieve what you have dreamt as it only makes the world a better place to live,” he says.

Written by Paul Baur, SAP

7 Months in Bangalore

It was a pleasant 10days in Mysore after the hectic training. The only woe I had at that time was that the company had not extended the “7star” accommodation they had provided me for 4 long months. That fateful day had finally come. I was ecstatic that I’ll continue in Mysore for over a year. But that particular day had changed it all. My H.R made me experience life in Bangalore again. He had come a bit late that day and suddenly had asked us if we were interested to work in Bangalore. I had an edge over others and ofcourse happier than them as I was a Bangalorean. He also added a statement which made me accept Bangalore. He said, you people might be transferred to Pune and Chandigarh. This particular statement had made me paranoid and I eventually went to Bangalore. But who knew it will be only for 7months and so dramatic? It actually changed my life drastically. That’s why; these 7months are more prominent than my 22years of life in Bangalore before Infosys.
I took some time to understand the importance of the transfer to Bangalore and in the beginning was a bit excited also. I had seen many things in Bangalore as a student. Now I could not only see things but also have them as I was employed in one of the most prestigious companies in India which paid a descent salary too. This made me very happy. Hence, I was eagerly waiting to reach Bangalore. But this was not all. I realized that it was more than that and not a walk on the cake afterall.
I was actually sent to Bangalore for a project along with 6 of my Training colleagues. Till then, I wasn’t exposed to the “corporate culture”. I was startled to see my office in Bangalore as it was a literal corporate jungle. It was not what Mysore campus was like, I immediately understood that my college days were over and now I am a kind of business man who is trying to sell myself daily.
In the beginning, I thought Bangalore will give me good technical knowledge and I’ll be put into some Hi-Fi project. But I was a bit dejected when they said, it was an in-house project. For this project, we had to struggle to get the required resources than to understand it. And the pressure was almost nil, making it even more boring. Then started my spree for reading different books and learning many things. It was basically the peer-pressure which made me learn different things. We were a group of around 7-8 people. Everyone in that group was good at multiple things. I had to learn many things because of that which included improving my language, vocabulary and general knowledge. We used to meet during lunch-breaks and I had lot of fun with that group. It included Ashutosh(one who can criticize even god!!!!!!), Anshuman (cracked CAT without preparing), Sandeep(one of the toppers in college), Vijay(one of the toppers in college), Rashmi(one of the toppers in college), Harsha( the guy who wants to talk to all the pretty girls in this world and knows about almost everything on this earth and one of the critics too). I was most of the times at the receiving end which gave me an excellent opportunity to know many things and to handle any situation.
Other than this group in office, I was also helped by some of my other friends to see life in a better way. They were Prasad, Anikethan, Santosh, Raghavendra, kaddi and c.k. everyone was so different from each other that I could actually learn about life from each of them. No character was a cliché. Everyone was unique and I always saw something better in them which I didn’t possess in me and every experience taught me something new. It would be unfair if I don’t mention the name of a person who always has been my role model and has guided me all the way. It is my uncle who is a genius in his own way, Srivatsa (Dadamama).
The first thing I did after I came to Bangalore was to buy a vehicle. This helped me a lot in traveling on weekends. Though I had so many friends, my weekends were still boring and not at all exciting. As my office colleagues were busy most of the weekends and they were not very outgoing kind. For some days initially, I normally went shopping to vent out my frustration due to boredom. Later I got a wonderful idea. I planned to make myself busy by getting into something on weekends. From my college days I was passionate about only one thing. That was acting in skits. The passion was so much intense that at one point of time in my life, I had even tried to make a career out of it and would have been successful also but my parents opposed to this and I had to withdraw. So, I thought I’ll try to do some thespian work. I eventually joined a group called “Wemove Productions” which was mainly producing English plays. All the members of that group were like me. They worked on the weekdays and met on weekends. I was part of 2 plays but didn’t get to play any prominent character in those plays. I gradually grew very fond of that group and if I have to go back to Bangalore now, I’ll probably join that again.
Along with all these things, an issue came up when I came to Bangalore. I had grown stout and had put on a lot of weight. So, I had become a bit conscious about that. I initially tried to workout in a local Gym but couldn’t continue for long as that demanded lot of time and I was a bit too lazy to getup early in the morning. Then along with 2 of my friends, I started jogging in the evenings. I had also started to eat raw vegetables for lunch and had cut down on my appetite considerably. This went on for 3-4 weeks and later I was right back on the track. I forgot about my weight as I had other things in office to concentrate on. By this time, I had addicted to the books and hence I started spending more time in office. Not only this but my blogging also had started and hence I concentrated more on other things.
The above said are the most important things I did in Bangalore for 7 months. Other than these things, everyday was a new experience and I used to do something new each day. Totally, it was real fun and it will surely remain unerased in my memory. I cant forget the 1hr15mins travel from my house to infy in the morning, trying to get the window seat everytime I got into the bus, rare breakfast in kamat, lunch in kamat, those lengthy coffee-breaks in terminal and golkonda, the way I rode on my Activa inspite of huge traffic in bangalore(the call-center cab type of driving), the basement, COE-lab, jogging in sannakadu, eating the roadside panipuri which used to be too spicy,going out for window-shopping and ending up shopping, the harangue episode, the walk from gate to 23,28 and vice-versa, gurukul, the talks during lunch break, the gokarting experience, bhatta’s somp(in kannada), other million memories which will always be stored in my memory. I will miss bangalore due to all these sweet experiences.